Mazda looking out for mother nature the best it can (i-stop and i-ELOOP)

Besides the 33% less fuel consumption compared to the 2014 model, the new CX-9 has two pretty nifty features: i-stop and i-ELOOP. I-stop is not unique to the new CX-9 but is still a new technology - when your car comes to a stop (think red light), the engine shuts off, but keeps power to the car for audio, air conditionings and so on. I-stop will only work if the engine is hot enough and enough power can be provided to keep things inside operational that are turned on.

I found after short five minute or so drives, i-stop did not activate, but anything longer, it kicks in. I found it also depends on how hard you are running the AC - I had the AC pumping at its coldest setting and on one drive I was 10 minutes in and i-stop did not activate.

Something to note and this isn't really a concern, but more of something to point out. When i-stop does activate, the engine really does stop - after you release your foot from the brake pedal, the engine kicks back in at around 1200 RPM, but there is a little bit of a delay (I'd say half a second) before that happens, so don't try slamming on the gas pedal instantly as soon as the lights go green. I'm sure that would be okay to do (Mazda says the engine instantly kicks back in on acceleration), but it's not something I was willing to do to my brand-new car.

i-ELOOP is another intelligent technology added to the new CX-9 which captures energy created from braking force and stores it in a capacitor that then sends power to various parts of the car including the battery, air conditioning system, and more. After being turned on in the car settings, you can get a great visual summary on the MZD Connect display screen upon turning off the car on how much extra range was added to the trip - yep, another nice addition to add to the growing list.

The Dashboard

The dash is as stylish and sophisticated as the rest of the car. It provides all of the usual goodies you've come to expect, but the far right panel is actually a screen, versus being a traditional dial. When you start the car and shut it down, a nice fading CX-9 logo is displayed. When the car is parked, you get a shot of the car and can very easily see which door is open, as you can see in the photo above.

During normal driving, you get a L/100km (miles per gallon) real-time readout to show how much fuel you are using, as well as average fuel consumption, outside temperature, as well as distance till empty in two visual formats.

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